


swear not by the moon

by orpheuus



Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, The Iliad - Homer, The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: Ancient Greece, Angst, Classics, Fluff, Forbidden Love, London AU, M/M, Mythology - Freeform, Oscar Wilde - Freeform, Patroclus and Achilles - Freeform, Slow Burn, patrochilles - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:35:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25477789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orpheuus/pseuds/orpheuus
Summary: patroclus must paint achilles in secret.story of achilles (prince!) patroclus (painter!) falling in love, set in the decadent period of the late 1800s.
Relationships: Achilles/Patroclus
Comments: 5
Kudos: 40





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the title of this fic comes from romeo and juliet. juliet tells romeo not to swear by the moon, “the inconstant moon,” but rather by his stolid, and true self. it’s just so beautiful!! anyways, leave a comment! let me know what ya think!

“you will be painted. i’ll hear no more of it.” 

achilles snatched his mother’s cigarette-case from her fingers. he examined it briefly, caught her eye, and tossed it across the room. he would not heed her word. he would not be painted.

he seized a small sculpture of Venus, (an original, as his mother liked to say—and, as achilles knew, was expensive) and broke it against the wall, obliterating the beauty of her face. “achilles!” his mother cried again, shielding herself, but trying also to gain control over his wild temper, “stop this immediately! you _will_ be painted. i won’t heart it. and i will certainly not endure _this_!”—another precious ornament was shattered—“achilles! enough!” 

and achilles, aware that his servant victor had probably heard her cries through the halls by now, knew it _was_ best to desist. victor would call in agamemnon, who would drag him off, and he would be punished: _gravely_. 

but he would not be painted. 

he would not have his face drawn up in oils; would not let his lips be marred by imitation. he would not be hung in that dark, curtained hall where his ancestors, pale and flaxen-headed, frowned upon living. 

he should stop; victor would call in agamemnon, and he would be punished: gravely. but he couldn’t stop. not when rage, like fire through sere fields, burned wildly throughout his limbs.

he passed over to the far wall of the antechamber: a wall covered in paintings, remembrances, political honors. his mother watched him with dark, fearful eyes. he strode to the wall and fixed his eyes upon a mirror. “achilles, enough!” he paused for a moment to survey her. there was a sadness in her face— almost as if her heart had been one of those fine glass things he had thrown into a thousand pieces. for a moment he was still; drawing out the time into interminable seconds, over which he stared into her heart. 

he turned away then. his eyes fell to the mirror, where he caught his curls gathered about his face like petals gathered around the bud of a rose; his eyes peered out at him from a deep, vertigo darkness, and his lips were red and wet with rage. 

his glinting eyes renewed the fire within his heart, breathing new force into its flames. he tore the mirror from the wall and flung it across the room. it shattered into a hundred silver splinters, and, this done, he looked his mother in the eye, and left. 

thetis began to weep.

~

patroclus’ fingers strayed over the shoulders of young paris, the son of a nobleman, whose portrait he had been tasked to paint. he tailored the posture of his left shoulder, then his right, adjusted the folds of his robe, and arranged his black curls round his cheeks to complete his look of easy charm. paris moved under his hands impatiently. “i’m almost finished,” patroclus murmured, “sit still.” his fingers graced the line of his neck, apprehensive, but sure that they must attend to the inclination of his head. after a few adjustments—moving his jaw gently up, down; now left, now right—patroclus stepped back, and examined his work.

“perfect.” 

paris shifted a little in his seat. “paris!” the young noble lowered his eyes on patroclus gravely. “ _count_ paris.” patroclus drew paris’ chin to the side again and moved back to his canvas, “i am sorry, sir. i forget formalities.” paris rolled his eyes, but remained still. “you would do better to remember them.” he said through closed teeth.

patroclus began again, painting away with that fine, meticulous touch of his, and as he worked, his thoughts began to escape from their bindings like darkness unwinding from pandora’s box. he knew it was wrong to think in such a way; to _fond_ in such a way: it was wrong, in short, to love a man. but the impulse crept back into his blood, no matter how he sought to suppress it, and he found himself enamored by the young man: haughty, petulant, conceited, but beautiful. it was for the sake beauty, after all, that he did paint. but he never meant to be so fond of boyish charm. women were charming, were they not? he strained to recall the last princess he painted. his mind failed him. 

he lowered his head to the canvas and looked to painting. he was almost done. 

paris had an expression of pleasant boredom on his lips, and patroclus sought to transmute the indifference on his eyes and lips to oils, for he knew that this—this: languorous, distracted—was count paris. his passing charm thence was captured: the painting was finished. 

patroclus smiled with that small, knowing smile of his, and nodded to paris. “it’s done. come look.” paris pushed himself from the stool, coming over to the large easel. his hips seemed to be drawn forward by invisible threads, moving, as he walked, with all the grace and authority of a dancer. “hmm,” he mused, “it is nice.” he threw his hands together, “it’s very nice. thank you, um—” “patroclus.” “patroclus! thank you, sirrah.” the painter winced. _sirrah._

“i’ll have my man come round with some payment and a box for the thing tomorrow,” paris said, as he undid the clasps of his robe, and pulled on his overcoat, “until then.” he tipped his hat, (more goodwill than could have been expected), and left the studio. 

for a long time after he had gone, patroclus stood motionless staring into the painting. it wasn’t until the postman dropped him a telegram that he left the canvas, and read twice, then thrice the card in disbelief: the pelides family wanted him to paint their son— _the prince_. 


	2. Chapter 2

paris’ man had arrived early the next morning for the portrait. He stood in the doorway, waiting impatiently as patroclus signed and covered the canvas, maneuvering it into a wooden box. in thirty minutes the painting had been packed away; thirty minutes more and patroclus had been paid, thanked, and chastised for sleeping in too late. with that, he was gone: loading the portrait into the back of a hansom, and speeding down Antrim street towards the house of his master.

and as patroclus watched him go, a kind of poignancy filled his place. another portrait painted, sold: the feeling reverberated in his chest, as though it were the high-walled, hollow nave of a cathedral; it passed down his limbs, through his fingers and feet, and he shuddered. it was as though regret had run a fingernail, sharp and frigid, down his spine, touching some vein to his heart in the process. it struck him to the quick, and he suddenly he realized that his life was passionless; utterly passionless— only in art had he felt a flicker of its warmth. but beyond the walls of his small, gas-lighted studio, time passed through him like a tube train; speeding through the tunnels of the underground, leaving only a fleeting touch on the tracks as it disappeared down another turn in the path. the hours came and went; they did not return. they sped silently through his soul, and left only a shudder in their place. something in that portrait lost— another painted, packaged, sold—told him to throw away his commercial, mechanical existence; his coldly echoing, hollow existence, and pour the riches of art and love and _life_ into his soul: to find a muse in the mute gray stream of faces that passed endlessly over blackfriar’s bridge; to find the adonis of modern london, hidden in somewhere deep cellars and clubs: to live. to love. 

  
his complacency had never occurred to him before, but as he watched the hansom passing down Antrim road, taking with it another portrait painted absently with absent fondness, he came to meet himself again. work had pervaded the body, the self had fallen away. but as that curtained hansom turned the corner, taking his portrait away forever to a man whose fairness he’d admired but had lost, he understood.

he started up from his place by the window. he would go for a walk. he would wander chalk farm, maybe go up primrose hill. there was a pâtissière in the streets that girdled the park. perhaps he would stop in for some bread and coffee. he liked these quiet suburbs of london; the little houses had little families to people them; laughter was limpid in the evening air: the streets were peaceful, unpolluted, and suited him. 

smiling, and thinking of the pâtissière—an underwhelming response to an epiphany, but he would find his way—he put on his single coat and scarf, and opened the door. 

“ah, mr. opus!” a woman, dressed in black damask, her face obscured by a veil, stood before him. “um, hello,” patroclus replied, nodding. he wasn’t expecting anyone; but no matter, the discovery of life (and the buying of bread) could be delayed. “i’m—well, i am,” she lowered her voice here, “queen thetis.” patroclus started back, as though his closeness were irreverent; started back, and bowed. “queen!” he breathed, “queen! i’m sorry, i’m so sorry that i didn’t, um—” “that’s alright,” she smiled, and for the first time patroclus noticed the two suited men who stood behind her, solemn and alert; almost invisible. “may i come in? i’ve something to discuss with you.” anxiously patroclus assented, showing her, and the two curiously silent men in her company, inside. he set out the tea-things for them both, and sat down opposite the woman he had never once expected to meet: the country’s figurehead, the queen. 

“i know i’ve come quite unexpectedly,” she began, tapping a finger against her tea-cup, “but the time was opportune, and rare.” patroclus nodded, noting the grave touch in her voice. “the letter, did you get it?” patroclus nodded once more. “good. well, as i told you, our son is nineteen, almost twenty now, and it’s customary to have a portrait done: he must be painted.” patroclus nodded like he understood the easy obligations of royalty. she paused—“and, you can do it, is that right?” “yes, yes, of course,” patroclus replied, “i would be honored, your highness.” 

  
“good,” she smiled, and patroclus had to admit he was surprised; for a queen, she was humble and kind—nothing like paris, who even with his rather insignificant title, was petulant and proud. her son, patroclus hoped, would be similar, and not a more impudent edition of the count. 

“your work is well known throughout england. it has hung in many great halls; and you are yet twenty-seven! it is a great achievement, to have done portraits of counts and barons, and it would be your honor, and mine, for you to paint achilles.” her eyes fell to the cup in her hands, as though she were searching in the tea leaves for a sign.

“but,” she began, “he refuses to be painted.” patroclus glanced shyly up at her, uncertain if it was right to look into the eyes of a queen, but looking with heart and attention anyway. “i don’t know why, i can’t understand his motives. i’ve tried to discuss it with him, tried bitterly hard, but he’ll have none of it.” she sighed and ran a hand across her face. “it has to be done, however: tradition demands it. so, you must paint him,” she lowered her voice and looked round, though none were close enough to hear, “in secret.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what?! another chapter??? sorry it took so long, ive been strangely busy lately! i essentially wrote this all tonight, so there are definitely errors that i will amend tomorrow. let me know how you like it. i’d love to hear from anyone reading! 
> 
> also i hate calling patroclus mr. opus lol


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> pat has a dream.

fragments of the day returned to him in dream; he saw the hansom, rattling down Antrim road, the slender impatient manservant at his door, the queen, tapping her finger against a glass, and strangely, her son.

he was cloistered from the world, unknown: having never been painted, he had never been seen; it was almost as if he had never existed at all. 

but that night, he saw him. 

the hall was dimmed by candlelight: round him hung the portraits of dead rulers, staring down at him with imperious eyes. the whole room seemed to radiate a dim redness, for the walls were dark and the lamps shaded scarlet; and over everything brooded the smell of burning oil. the ancestral eyes seemed to follow him; but he shook their presence from his shoulders, for he felt he must be searching for something.

down the passage he wandered for what seemed like hours, passing portrait after portrait of dead king and feeling the scent of oil descending upon him, dimming his senses, and enshrouding his mind in a thick fog. at last he came to the end of the hall, but there was no door to continue; no turn to go on. the passage merely… stopped. 

he looked round, somewhat dazed by the low light and thick air. his eyes passed over the leaden faces of generals, kings; the damask cheek of young princes, and the solemn, regal eyes of queens— then he stopped. beside the image of their present king there hung a curtained frame: a red veil with England’s insignia, like the ceremonious covering of a grave. the three lions lashed their tongues at him, and their gold-threaded hides glimmered dimly on the pall. but why was it covered? patroclus was never one to ask questions—and much less to pursue their answers—but he was curious about the picture thus bescreened. why were leagues of kings and queens displayed across the walls, but this one concealed? what did it hold that must be hidden? he would find out. 

he touched a tassel of the pall, tentatively at first, but with increasing confidence. with a small tug, he pulled the curtain back completely, and it fell to the floor. 

through the dim drifts of smoke going up from the gas, patroclus saw a portrait of a young man in a drawing room, his hand on a marble table, and his back turned. and even though his face was hidden from view, patroclus could tell that he was of extraordinary personal beauty. his body was lean and muscular; obviously strong, but lithe: his fingers seemed to lift just barely from the table they rested on, impatient and deft. hanging from his shoulders was a cerulean robe of hand-fashioned silk, lined with golden patterns and blue ribbons that trailed down from the sleeves like the wings of swallow-tail kites. belted by a egyptian girdle, it was gathered most flatteringly about his waist—but most striking of all was not his garments but his hair: his golden hair, rippling over his shoulders like sunlit waves unfolding on the shore. 

patroclus was awestruck. the touch of eastern beauty in the picture was delicate, subtle, and strange: if you listened closely, you could almost hear the intricate strings of an oud, weaving together a melody of ancient days. england’s drums and trumpets died away, the cheerless troops fell back, and the portrait—strange, subtle, and delicate—stood forth in silence. there was something different in it: something different in—he took a step closer to read the panting’s inscription— _achilles_. for the prince’s portrait seemed to brood darkly over what his ancestors had bequeathed him; to turn his heart away from fame. 

the light of morning had begun to fall upon the room—still faint, and seemingly far off—but as soon as the first point of light shone through the curtain, the room went black. patroclus watched in terror and fascination as the gas-lamps were suddenly quenched and silenced: the room was thrown into darkness, save for that single arrow of light which dawn had shot whistling through the blind. a cold wind ran round his feet, and in the darkness, the sound of footsteps began to echo down the hall. 

immediately patroclus dropped to the ground and spread his hands across the tiles. the footsteps were approaching fast, and he had to find the veil he‘d torn from the frame. frantically his hands searched for the silk cover, but they found naught. the new darkness stunned his eyes so that he could not see an inch in front of him or behind him, and though he was sure the veil could not have fallen far, it was nowhere to be found. there was nothing he could do now: not in the cold, dark air, not with someone chasing his transgression— so he fled. 

dawn was falling now in longer streaks of light; arrows sent further through the air, piercing the darkness with their threads of fire. the feet kept close behind him, forcing him on and on down the passage which had miraculously opened into identical halls, all lined with windows, portraits, and lengthening streaks of light. all of the sudden the speed of the footsteps doubled behind him, and he _ran_. for the moment he was safe, the footfalls being some ways off—but almost impossibly, they doubled again, hardly gracing the ground as they flew after his heels. 

patroclus ran on through the lightening halls, desperately fleeing but also desperately weak; he ran on and on until at last, he gave in. let them catch him, condemn him, throw him in prison for uncovering the pall. he could go no further. he sunk to his knees, his body groping for breath as his chest expanded fast, and fell—and then he saw him. the boy from the portrait: the boy with the golden curls, the lithe figure, the impatient hands—the prince. it was _he_ who had pursued him; and he saw his face. the prince! the prince!—he extended his hand, their fingers touched fleetingly, and he awoke. 

he looked around. his room remained undisturbed. the smell of oil had lifted; the day had come. and yet a throbbing, maddening cry seemed to issue from his soul. a new and fearful curiosity was within him: the winding tunnels, the imperious eyes, the dark halls draped in red— what did they mean? and the prince— he had seen the prince! or at least, he thought he had. already the vision was fading fast; a weak flame, flickering in a pool of wax. he could see the portrait still: a blonde young man, his back turned, fingers wrapped around a table’s edge. his robes were made of a fine, golden silk, fashioned with blue ribbons that dovetailed behind him—but the young man himself was gone. patroclus strove to see his face again, but in the daylight, it had dissolved.

the hour was late: already the streets were busy with suited men and servants, encumbered with shopping-bags and boxes; he watched as a mother and son went in hand across the pavement below, and a school-girl threw a shilling into the fountain. in the distance a small string-quartet played. patroclus glanced at the clock: 2:00pm. the queen had said before she left that she would send a letter the next morning, and surely it was at his step now. so, pulling on a pair of boots (they were the only thing round, and in the studio he never went without shoes), he trooped down the stairs. 

sure enough, a letter and a large package lay at the foot of the door. and though no one was there to see him receive it, he picked it up with a certain anxiety, balancing it carefully in his open hands. when he had sifted through the rest of his mail—request for portrait, dinner at bern’s?, a catalogue with pictures of caps—he broke the english crest and drew out the letter. 

_  
mr. Opus,_ it read, _please arrive at 7:00am tomorrow morning before the castle’s eastern gate. a hansom will be sent for you. the box i’ve sent along contains a uniform for you to wear tomorrow; remember, you are to tell the prince that you are his page. painting supplies have already been provided for you and are concealed; don’t fret, a servant shall attend to you and help you with this strange and difficult task._

_thank you a thousand times._

_thetis._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi, i hope u liked this. idk what it is. leave a comment and let me know what u think!!! :)


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